Roughdry

adj, verb

adj, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    In laundry work, to dry without smoothing or ironing. transitive

    "Mr. Seeders was thin and had light hair, and appeared to have been recently roughdried and starched."

  2. 2
    To dry shaped bricks before they are fired in a kiln.

    "He had a cough which spoke sometimes of roughdried bricks in a builder's yard, and his calf muscles spoiled the particoloured set of his stockings."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Having been dried but not ironed.

    "At the time of the injury appellant was operating a flatwork ironer, wheras thereafter her duties were confined solely to the folding of roughdry laundry, a duty which did not involve the same amount of dexterity or physical exertion as the job she was performing at the time of the injury."

  2. 2
    Having been been sawn, edged, trimmed, and dried, but not surfaced or dressed by planing.

    "The dry lumber was pulled from the kiln and held in the roughdry shed for a day or two before unstacking."

Example

More examples

"Mr. Seeders was thin and had light hair, and appeared to have been recently roughdried and starched."

Etymology

From rough + dry.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.